Blog posts tagged with innovation

When people have bold ideas, the world notices. Take a look at the stories below to see how people everywhere, from fourth graders to 60-year-old adventurers, are trying to change the world by daring to be bold.

Saving the world from aliens and vice versa: 9-year-old Jack tells NASA he should be their next planetary protection officer

Conservation commentary: 3 students make popsicles from polluted water

Around the world, upstanding citizens are working to help combat their region-specific problems. From saving endangered species to finding a more efficient way to deal with old furniture, these innovators will bring a smile to your face.

Camions of Care: This teen-started initiative provides period products to those in need

Saving the turtles: How one man helped protect a 3,000 acre nature reserve

Kiva and The MasterCard Foundation are kicking off a 5-year, $7.9 million partnership to test, develop and scale high-impact loans serving the unique needs of smallholder farmers and rural populations in sub-Saharan Africa.... Continue Reading >>

Today, Kiva entrepreneurs around the world are making fundamental changes in their own lives and the lives of their families -- from a Ugandan farmer looking to buy seeds and tools for increasing crop yields, to a talented seamstress hoping to start a business with a new sewing machine. But some entrepreneurs still face difficulties accessing the capital they need to create jobs and address larger, community-wide issues of poverty.

In industrialized nations, these small and medium enterprises (5 - 250 employees)...

We’re thrilled to announce that this morning, Kiva received a Google Global Impact Award as an entrepreneurial team who thinks on a global scale and has a “healthy disregard for the impossible.”

We’ll be using this grant to launch Kiva Labs, a new initiative that delivers the power of crowdfunding and microfinance to critical solutions in agriculture, clean energy, mobile information, and other transformative technologies.

Tech-driven solutions in each of these areas are driving progress around the...

Following our collaborative learning event with the Grameen Foundation on Human Centered design, we're continuing to explore effective products for the poor with our mini blog series. Our first blog covered the main concepts within product design in international development. To read more, click here. In this second installment, we explore the way Kiva partners are meeting the needs of the poor by placing their needs first and foremost.

One Size definitely does not fit all - at least not with financial products.

When we think about impact at Kiva, the first thing that comes to mind is the effect loans have on borrowers’ lives. From a shopkeeper in Rwanda paying back her loan successfully to a farmer in Nicaragua putting his kids through school, it’s clear that Kiva loans are changing lives each and every day.

Of course none of this would be possible without our 170+ field partners around the world. So when it comes to reaching even more borrowers with the right loans and services, we also need to enable change at the partner level. How do we plan to do this?

Lately, it seems like everyone has caught the startup bug. With constant news of billion dollar companies being founded by college students, the latest iteration of the American Dream has yielded a fresh crop of entrepreneurs.

Scribd, Reddit, Airbnb, Dropbox – what do all of these innovative startups have in common? They all got off the ground with help from programs called "seed accelerators," in this case one in particular: Y Combinator.

Over the past 6 years, accelerator programs have emerged across the country to incubate cutting-edge technologies... Continue Reading >>

In 1939, two Stanford graduates named Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard built an audio oscillator in their Palo Alto garage. They sold eight of these electronic sound testers to Walt Disney Studios for $5,000. With the money they started Hewlett-Packard, a.ka. HP. They also gave birth to Silicon Valley.

Two guys in a garage tinkering away, taking risks, working ungodly hours -- it’s an image that has become symbolic of startups everywhere. Unfortunately, it’s also changed the way people think of startups -- overshadowing small business efforts made by nonprofits,... Continue Reading >>

Blog posts tagged with innovation

When people have bold ideas, the world notices. Take a look at the stories below to see how people everywhere, from fourth graders to 60-year-old adventurers, are trying to change the world by daring to be bold.

Saving the world from aliens and vice versa: 9-year-old Jack tells NASA he should be their next planetary protection officer

Conservation commentary: 3 students make popsicles from polluted water

Around the world, upstanding citizens are working to help combat their region-specific problems. From saving endangered species to finding a more efficient way to deal with old furniture, these innovators will bring a smile to your face.

Camions of Care: This teen-started initiative provides period products to those in need

Saving the turtles: How one man helped protect a 3,000 acre nature reserve

Kiva and The MasterCard Foundation are kicking off a 5-year, $7.9 million partnership to test, develop and scale high-impact loans serving the unique needs of smallholder farmers and rural populations in sub-Saharan Africa.... Continue Reading >>

Today, Kiva entrepreneurs around the world are making fundamental changes in their own lives and the lives of their families -- from a Ugandan farmer looking to buy seeds and tools for increasing crop yields, to a talented seamstress hoping to start a business with a new sewing machine. But some entrepreneurs still face difficulties accessing the capital they need to create jobs and address larger, community-wide issues of poverty.

In industrialized nations, these small and medium enterprises (5 - 250 employees)...

We’re thrilled to announce that this morning, Kiva received a Google Global Impact Award as an entrepreneurial team who thinks on a global scale and has a “healthy disregard for the impossible.”

We’ll be using this grant to launch Kiva Labs, a new initiative that delivers the power of crowdfunding and microfinance to critical solutions in agriculture, clean energy, mobile information, and other transformative technologies.

Tech-driven solutions in each of these areas are driving progress around the...

Following our collaborative learning event with the Grameen Foundation on Human Centered design, we're continuing to explore effective products for the poor with our mini blog series. Our first blog covered the main concepts within product design in international development. To read more, click here. In this second installment, we explore the way Kiva partners are meeting the needs of the poor by placing their needs first and foremost.

One Size definitely does not fit all - at least not with financial products.

When we think about impact at Kiva, the first thing that comes to mind is the effect loans have on borrowers’ lives. From a shopkeeper in Rwanda paying back her loan successfully to a farmer in Nicaragua putting his kids through school, it’s clear that Kiva loans are changing lives each and every day.

Of course none of this would be possible without our 170+ field partners around the world. So when it comes to reaching even more borrowers with the right loans and services, we also need to enable change at the partner level. How do we plan to do this?

Lately, it seems like everyone has caught the startup bug. With constant news of billion dollar companies being founded by college students, the latest iteration of the American Dream has yielded a fresh crop of entrepreneurs.

Scribd, Reddit, Airbnb, Dropbox – what do all of these innovative startups have in common? They all got off the ground with help from programs called "seed accelerators," in this case one in particular: Y Combinator.

Over the past 6 years, accelerator programs have emerged across the country to incubate cutting-edge technologies... Continue Reading >>

In 1939, two Stanford graduates named Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard built an audio oscillator in their Palo Alto garage. They sold eight of these electronic sound testers to Walt Disney Studios for $5,000. With the money they started Hewlett-Packard, a.ka. HP. They also gave birth to Silicon Valley.

Two guys in a garage tinkering away, taking risks, working ungodly hours -- it’s an image that has become symbolic of startups everywhere. Unfortunately, it’s also changed the way people think of startups -- overshadowing small business efforts made by nonprofits,... Continue Reading >>

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Kiva connects millions of people through lending to alleviate poverty. Read about our partners, programs and loans here. Or check out stories straight from the field on the Kiva Fellows Blog. Have questions? Send them our way at blog@kiva.org.